Loved and Left
by Rachel Striker
Summary: A prequel to "The Pit and Pendulum", told by a woman from the narrator's life. (Yes, I know, my summary's rubbish. Sorry.)


**This is a short story I wrote for an English project on Poe's style, so I'd really appreciate it if you could review and tell me what you think!**

Loved and Left

I was in love, or at least I had been; of this I am sure. Perhaps it was not the suddenness of the news when I heard, that caused my contrition, but rather the knowledge that I was freed of all obligations and responsibility and could start anew. Free! and yet bound in the hands of guilt! It was not my intention to fall out of love; indeed, it was not my intention to fall in love in the first place, but when I had realized that love, like all other mortal feelings, fades, it had been too late.

My first experience with love had been strange. It was as if I was sick unto death without knowing why, immersed in a long agony of the heart that refused to cease. The man for whom I reserved my affections was a teacher of arithmetic and had a respectable and steady employment at a university not far from where I lived. Our first meeting had been at a party of sorts, thrown by someone who was rather new in the vicinity and so, for no better reason other than not really knowing who to invite, invited all within a radius of four miles.

He had quietly come up while I was distracted in another conversation with my sister and had lightly tapped me on the shoulder. The moment I looked into his eyes blood drove in torrents upon my heart. Thankfully none of this reaction seemed reflected in my eyes, and he asked simply if I would like to dance with him. I replied in the affirmative and let him lead me forward, and we began to dance in time with the music. Though I tried to hide it, I could not conceal from myself the fact that I was trembling convulsively. I longed, yet dared not, to close the modest gap between us. I shook in every limb. I struggled for breath.

These love-like experiences continued, though over time I became disinterested. The realization that I was no longer in love was not one that made itself apparent immediately. The nature of infatuation is as a substitute for love, and I was yet too young to have experienced enough in that region of the heart to tell the difference. Thus, when he proposed, my thought that marriage could bring naught but prolonged suffering on my part held me back from answering as joyously and fervently as he might have hoped. I agreed after some thought, as per the wishes of my parents, but against the wishes of my heart. Though this difficulty of acceptance seemed trivial, I could see that he doubted me from that moment of hesitation onward. To regain his trust I feigned happiness above and beyond what I would have in reality, and it seemed to satisfy him.

On the eve of our wedding day I lay sleepless with trepidation. None knew of the turmoil in my heart save my mother and sister, and what could they do to save me? I was to blame for this; had I not acted as though I was in love? had I not accepted his advances? could I not have refused? had I not brought this upon myself? did not the blame fall upon me? No; there was no end to be brought by mind games and tricks. I walked to the window and surveyed the cold ground below me. In other conditions of mind I might have had the courage to end my misery at once by a leap off of this precipice, but even now in the utmost misery and faced by living my remaining years bound to one whom I could not find it in myself to love, human instinct won out. Death, then, would not relinquish the answer I sought: how to escape, how to stop this madness, how to become free. And so, with the countenance of a prisoner on the eve of his execution, I went to sleep.

The next morning I was woken very early by my scandalized mother. In between her shrieks of sorrow I managed to ascertain that my husband-to-be had been captured by the Inquisition. And so I was freed, with no consequences; it was a well-known fact that none returned once taken. And yet, why did I feel this sorrow, this anguish? Could it possibly be that I loved him still? After thinking on this for a short while, I brushed the thought away. I had not loved and lost. No, I had loved and left, leaving he who still loved to lose his way.


End file.
